


escapism

by lalikha



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - BTS World, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Alternate Universe - The Most Beautiful Moment In Life | HYYH, BTXT INTERACTION CRUMBS, Canonical Character Death, Chance Meetings, Discussions between 2 Tired Time Travellers Trying Their Best, Dreamlike Imagery, Gen, In Past Reiterations of the Timeline, Inspired by Music Videos, Lucid Dreaming, Not Really Angsty They're Just Kinda Vibing, Parallel Universes, References to Depression, Time Travel, canon-typical sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25015576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalikha/pseuds/lalikha
Summary: Soobin and Seokjin are unrelated people both plagued with nightmares. They meet each other in the rare occurence of a dream.☆inspired by that one post about bighit's time traveller line (from @biconksj in twitter) and various other influences.
Relationships: Choi Soobin & Kim Seokjin | Jin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 38





	escapism

Soobin has recurring dreams. He's not even sure whether to call them dreams anymore since the dark turn they've recently taken. He can no longer hold Yeonjun's gaze, scared of what he'll see if he looks at him for too long.

When he opens his eyes, he's immediately aware that he's dreaming and recognizes that this dream isn't the same. The atmosphere was light and free of tension.  _ It's warm _ , he thinks.

Soobin wanders around a field of blushing flowers and lush grass— reminiscent of late spring and the slow creep of summer. The blooms are soft against his bare feet, the sensation barely there, much unlike the cutting hyperrealism in his usual dreams.

The landscape is bright, but not very. It's as if he's suspended in a still sunset painting, the sun hidden away in unchanging horizons that blur the more you look. The sky is a pretty lilac hue,— much like the jumper Soobin wore then, he realizes.

Upon arriving at the top of a hill, he spots a tree a distance away. It stood out in the whimsical sea of color, demanding attention as its twisting branches, barely clad in golden green, reach up towards cotton candy clouds.

Soobin runs, and a caressing breeze follows in his wake. His feet upsets petals, leaves, and pollen with each step he takes. They flow with the breeze, filling the air with scent and color and lush, lush, life. Soobin can't help but look around in wonder.

The tree grows bigger in his sight, and Soobin slows to a stop, several strides away from its thick roots. He braces himself as he walks around the great tree, tensing when he spots another figure.

It was familiar, but not. A feeling deeply lodged in his chest twists. It wasn't quite like panic, but Soobin's heart races a bit. He's only certain of one thing— this figure wasn't one of his friends.

He speaks first and says "Hello?". His voice should be rough from disuse, but it sounds surprisingly alright, if not a little distant, like listening to his own voice from another room. It was disorienting, like how the light makes his skin appear sallow, like how the clouds remain fixed overhead. 

The figure turns, and Soobin knows this person, but his mind offers no names.

"Soobin-ah?"

He tenses up further upon hearing his own. Soobin's eyes flit over the man's face, trying to identify him but to no avail. He looked older than him, but this man's youth hasn't left his body, certainly. His eyes however shone with a kind of dullness, and Soobin knows. His own eyes look the same in the practice room mirror.

"You're like me," he breathes in awe, and the feeling in his chest unfurls, warm relief and familiarity. Tears prickle at his eyes, but he blinks them away.

The person—  _ who? _ — smiles, a tinge of bitter lacing his sweet, and Soobin wonders, wonders, if his own looks the same when he attempts to smile back.

"I'm Jin."

"How do you know me?" Soobin steps closer, so unhurried that the fragile blooms beneath his feet were still intact after each step. "Have we met?"

"We've met a few times before. I just never thought..."

Soobin realizes it slowly, in the time a leaf takes to descend from the tree's branch. Kim Seokjin, from... He's finished his internship already, so he hasn't seen the senior in months. He just never thought he'd see him again.  _ Why here? Why now? _ "Seokjin-sunbae."

"You don't have to be so formal. You can just call me Jin-hyung."

"Jin-hyung," Soobin mutters, testing the words.

Silence hangs between them, but it's short-lived. "I've never met anyone else like me before," says Jin. The breeze picks up slightly, scattering the petals around them.

"How did you know?" Soobin steps closer and sits across the other man.

Jin is silent, first. Then, "I'm not sure. How did you?"

"I had a feeling," Soobin replied honestly. "Seeing your eyes made me sure."

Jin blinks, his eyes leaving Soobin's face, instead staring off to somewhere farther. "Me too."

Soobin tries again, refusing to let this fizzle. "For how long have you been... travelling?"

Jin's eyes are still distant. He purses his lips, opens them as if to speak, then hesitates. He does so multiple times. "Do you remember the rumours? The ones about me?"

Soobin says "I never really paid those any attention," because he didn't.

But he remembers whispers carried across the employee's locker room about the hotel owner's melancholy son with too-bright smiles. Remembers the sound of sobbing at the seaside, muted and pained, but not as much as the frustrated scream that follows, piercing through the night, but lost in the loud crash of waves.

He almost forgot, but he cries just as much nowadays, fearful of what his dreams could mean. Soobin looks back at Jin. "I noticed, though."

When Jin turns to search his eyes, Soobin feels fear. A fear of being caught, being seen. A fear of being judged, being reprimanded. Instead he sees himself mirrored on Seokjin's face, equally terrified.

_ He's just like me. I'm just like him. _

"I was scared I'd go back again. I still am."

"What... happens? When you dream?"

"Dream?"

"Yeah. Isn't that how it happens?"

"Don't you mean a loop?"  Jin sounds distant as he said it. The mention of it weighs down on his expression. He's youthful, and yet, at that very moment, Seokjin looked tired and aged.

Soobin is silent. He thinks about it, reads between the lines, the same way he processes his dreams. His eyes flit to the fickle horizon, squinting to see what lays beyond, but sees nothing.

"We travel differently."  Soobin feels out of balance, uncertain. He didn't know where the line was.  _ Should I ask about it? _ He thinks better of it, and takes just a small step forward.  "Where are you now?"

Jin smiles, and it's painful to watch.

"April 11, again."  He gulps, and looks up to bare twisting branches and a cotton candy cloud.  "It's been a whole year since I last looped."

Soobin wants to take back his words, but the scenery shifts, and he's dizzy with it.

"I've lost count," says Jin's voice, and it echoes around Soobin's skull. "Of how many times I went through April 11."

A fingertip ghosts against his knuckle (it could have been the brush of a sleek feather). The sharp sound of fabric hitting air rings in his ears (it makes him think of wingflaps). He feels warm tears streak down his cheek (but he fears it could have been blood).  Soobin's mind supplies the image of beautiful mechanical wings, dipped in murky oil.

_ (Soobin-hyung!) _

He forcefully recoils with his entire body, his eyes dilating under tightly-shut lids.

"It's really a wonder..." and Jin's voice begins to sound distant, even in his head.  "How I'm still here."

"Soobin, are you happy where you are?" It sounds like a breathless whisper, like the choking on tears. He holds on to it.

The world shifts, and his lungs fill with air. He opens his eyes to the sight of Jin, seated across him, in a café table for two. Everything stops spinning, and Soobin breathes gulps of relief.

"Here," Jin says, his voice warm against the cold light. He passes Soobin a cup of milk. He takes it, fingers curling around the mug, letting the warmth seep into his skin. When Soobin takes a sip, he doesn't feel the liquid down his throat.

"Are you alright? You look like you just saw a ghost."

"I saw— I think I had another dream. I couldn't wake up."

The light outside the dream café's window was lonely, sharp, and cold. Soobin wasn't sure what time it could have been, if he was awake, but it seemed like rain was imminent. He looks at Seokjin, his outline a stark contrast against their surroundings.

"Let's take a walk. I can hear the sea. It should be close." Soobin only follows Jin in reply.

The bells above the café door tinkles to signal their leave. Soobin looks around the row of shops, trying to glimpse at their names, but the characters don't register in his head. The row of the shops blur like watercolor.

"Hyung, is this the longest you've gone without a loop?"

"No." Jin's voice trails off, and Soobin doesn't press further. "The longest was over two years. I thought I would never have to loop again. When we lost Hoseok, I thought I'll never see him anymore. Then I heard breaking glass, for the first time again."

"You had to go through another loop...?" Soobin struggles to grasp everything Jin says, but he thinks he understands, even just a little. He watches Jin nod solemnly.

"I was careless, after that. I didn't know what to do with myself. For multiple loops, I did nothing. I watched the same news every night, and woke up to April 11 the next day, until I didn't."

"What happened?"

"Taehyung figured it out, one day. He saved everyone, then came knocking at my door."

Soobin can hear the crash of waves now, strong gusts of wind howling at them. He shivers, feeling the cold seep through his clothes. The air tastes of tears.

Jin sits on the sand, craning his head towards the tall figure with a faint smile. Soobin joins him and they both gaze at the horizon. It's nothing but blue for miles. Thunder rumbles overhead, but it doesn't startle either of them. The saltwater touches their feet with each crash to the shore.

"What happens in your dreams, Soobin-ah?"

Raindrops meet their skin. Soobin lays back on the sand, disregarding how the water laps up to his knees. "I don't know, hyung. I see me and my friends in another world in one, then I see a much younger Kai the next. I don't always understand them, but I'm pretty sure my friends dream of the same thing too. It's scary, because we don't talk about it."

"I was the same way with Taehyung and his dreams about the past loops. Talking about it didn't necessarily make things easier."

They say nothing more, lost in their own thoughts. The rain pours over them. The sea reaches for them. The lightning paints shadows of them. At that moment, either men are simply dreaming of rain and the crash of waves until the ocean swallows them whole.

**Author's Note:**

> Seokjin hasn't had a good dream in months until today. Soobin is still dreaming of something else— something that feels too real to be a dream.
> 
> ☆
> 
> comment if you want more of this au. stream stay gold and the entire eternity ep and support both groups ✨✨


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